Dealing with the economic crisis

By hiding the facts.

Steve Benen of the Carpetbagger Report:

The Bush administration has a long and comical history of going to great lengths to hide bad news from the public. Today, Amanda at TP reports on the latest gem:

The U.S. economy is faltering. Family debt is on the rise, benefits are disappearing, the deficit is skyrocketing, and the mortgage crisis has worsened. Conservatives have attempted to deflect attention from the crisis, by blaming the media’s negative coverage and insisting the United States is not headed toward a recession, despite what economists are predicting.

The Bush administration’s latest move is to simply hide the data. Forbes has awarded EconomicIndicators.gov one of its “Best of the Web” awards. As Forbes explains, the government site provides an invaluable service to the public for accessing U.S. economic data:

“This site is maintained by the Economics and Statistics Administration and combines data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, like GDP and net imports and exports, and the Census Bureau, like retail sales and durable goods shipments. The site simply links to the relevant department’s Web site. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing it yourself–say, trying to find retail sales data on the Census Bureau’s site — is such an exercise in futility that it will convince you why this portal is necessary.”

Alas, as the economic conditions worsen, the administration decided to shut down this “necessary” website, citing “budgetary constraints.”

After listing several examples of oddly convenient "budgetary constraints", Benen ends by saying:

When public information conflict with the White House’s agenda, the Bush gang has a choice — deal with the problem or hide the information. Guess which course they prefer?

Well.. lessee... hmmm. Really do some hard work? Sit down and do some difficult math? Actually govern?